Andrew Evans case

Andrew Evans (born 1955) is an English soldier from Longton, Staffordshire who was wrongfully convicted and served 25 years in jail after confessing to the 1972 murder of Judith Roberts, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from a village close to the northern outskirts of nearby Tamworth. Evans was stationed at Whittington Barracks near Lichfield – an army base in close proximity to Tamworth – when Judith was dragged from her bicycle and battered to death in June 1972. He later confessed to the crime after seeing the girl's face in a dream.

Evans was charged with Judith's murder in October 1972 after he presented himself at a local police station, asking to see a photograph of the victim, and making a signed statement following three days of interviews in which he maintained his guilt. Although he subsequently retracted his confession, a jury convicted him of murder following a trial in 1973, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Advised he had no grounds for appeal, Evans spent the next two decades in prison before his case came to the attention of the British media in 1994, and was taken up by the human rights group Justice when he contacted them about it.

With no other evidence against him apart from his own words, and strong evidence that he was suffering from false memories as the result of anxiety and depression at the time of his arrest, Evans's conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 1997; and he was released from prison. As of 1997 the time he spent in custody was the longest period served by an individual in the United Kingdom as the result of a miscarriage of justice. Evans was awarded £750,000 in compensation from the Home Office in 2000, while the identity of the real killer remains unknown.